Below are a selection of program options for the Alexander String Quartet. For more options, printable versions, and more, visit BesenArts.com.
Program A
Mozart: String Quartet No. 8 in F major, K. 168 (1773)
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat major, Op. 117 (1964)
Sibelius: Voces intimae (String Quartet No. 2), Op. 56 (1909)
Program B
Haydn: String Quartet in C major, Op. 33, No. 3 “The Bird” (1781)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, Sz. 67 (1915-7)
Nielsen: String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 (1889, rev. 1898)
Program C
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 18, No. 2 (1798-1800)
Tarik O’Regan: Gradual (2016)
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (1893)
Special Programs
British Invasion
The Alexander String Quartet and guitarist William Kanengiser are pleased to announce an unusual collaborative program, “British Invasion,” featuring music of Sting, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, and John Dowland.
The germ of this project is a work co-composed by Sting and Dušan Bogdanović, “Prisms – Six Songs by Sting” (2013). The work reinterprets, for guitar and string quartet, the songs “Every Breath You Take,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Shape of My Heart,” “Fields of Gold,” “Roxanne,” and “Desert Rose.” This will be the U.S. Premiere of this work, and will follow a January 2023 Recording Release. The musicians decided to craft a program of quintet works, all with a British connection:
Sting/Bogdanović
- Prisms – Six Songs by Sting [2013] – U.S. Premiere
Leo Brouwer
- From Yesterday to Today: Seven Songs After the Beatles [1995]
Ian Krouse
- Labyrinth (on a theme by Led Zeppelin) [1995]
Ian Krouse
- Music in Four Sharps (on Dowland’s Frog Galliard) [2004]
The Alexander String Quartet and Joyce Yang
The focus of this collaboration is to offer audiences a full program of works for strings and piano – rather than the more standard constellation of two string quartets and one piano quintet. Here is a list of works available:
Brahms: Quintet for Piano & Strings in F minor, Op. 34 (1864) *
Dvořák: Quintet for Piano & Strings in A major, Op. 81 (1887)
Mozart: Quartet No. 1 for Piano & Strings in G minor, K. 478 (1785) **
Mozart: Quartet No. 2 for Piano & Strings in E-flat major, K. 493 (1786) **
Alfred Schnittke: Piano Quintet (1972-6)
Schumann: Quintet for Piano & Strings in E-flat major, Op. 44 (1842) *
Shostakovich: Quintet for Piano & Strings in G minor, Op. 57 (1940)
NEW WORK FOR PIANO QUINTET
Samuel Adams: Quintet (2018)
The Alexander String Quartet and Ms. Yang are pleased to announce the commissioning of a new work for them by a consortium including the Arizona Friends of Music, Mondavi Center, San Francisco Performances, and Soka University. The premiere took place in Tucson, Arizona, in February 2019.